On 4th july 2019, i booked an ola auto ride from my home to akshay patra foundation, vasanthpura, bengaluru. As usual, ola gave a pre-ride estimate of rs. 452 for the ride. I noticed that there are two routes from my home to this place. One is via orr/nice road and is 32 kms, the other is from within the city and is only 21 kms. Google was suggesting the longer route due to a 2 minutes time difference. It was clear that ola, which uses google maps api, was estimating the price based on the longer route. Here's the calculation:
Rs. 13/km * 32 kms = rs. 416 + ola access fee
I booked the ride. Using common sense, i asked the driver to follow the shorter route since the time difference wasn't much. He followed the 21 kms route for which the fare should have been in the range of rs. 320. My understanding was, as per ola's pricing rules, the fare will be updated based on actual route taken. However, at the end of the ride, ola charged me rs. 452/-, the full amount that they had showed in the estimate!
I contacted their customer care (#[protected], but was informed that they only charged me what was shown at the beginning of the ride. They also tried to give me various excuses like, i changed the destination later (Which is not true) or that fares are updated based on route only for cabs and not for autos (Again not true). They finally closed my ticket without processing the difference amount.
I understand that auto fares in bangalore are regulated by government and ola cannot charge such exorbitant amounts for auto rides.
Ph no [protected]
[protected]@gmail.com